


Hatred

by mademoisellePlume



Series: Rachel-Centric Drabbles [1]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: AU, F/M, Hatemance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-18
Updated: 2012-07-18
Packaged: 2017-11-10 05:30:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/462702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mademoisellePlume/pseuds/mademoisellePlume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This takes place in a “What if Crayak Offers David the Tobias Deal” AU. Written for a prompt sent to askrachelberenson.tumblr.com</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hatred

 

“Rachel. Been a while.” The voice was cool, calm, and it absolutely reeked of self-satisfaction. Rachel’s entire body went stiff, and she didn’t even realize she dropped the bag she’d been holding. She couldn’t make herself turn around. She couldn’t have heard him. He was trapped, he was a nothlit, if he was talking to her, it would be thought-speech.

Steps from behind her. A shape, out of the corner of her eye, picking up her bag, and peering in to look at her shopping. “Aw, this top looks just darling. You want to model it for me?”

She whirled. Fuck. It was him. A year older, like they all were, and as human as she was. His grin was unholy. “Of course, I like the outfit you got on now just fine. You should wear mini-skirts more often, Rachel.” His grin was disgusting.

She glared, but was at a loss for words. The mall was too public. Too public to attack, too public to scream, too public to demand answers.

“Been a while, ratboy. Going to explain your new look?” She finally managed to get out, her expression still locked in one of fury, and when he mockingly held out the bag to her, she snatched it from him.

“Let’s just say that Birdboy isn’t the only one with friends.” He almost purred. Ironically, for a boy that had been a rat for quite some time now, he looked almost exactly like a cat that had just gotten into the cream.

…That had to mean Crayak. Damn. They’d known something was coming from that side of things, but they hadn’t even imagined this. Rachel’s heart was burning in her fury, and it took a lot of willpower not to throw caution to the wind and go bear then and there. “…Why don’t we step outside and have us a chat, rattie?”

“I’d be glad to. Lead the way.” He said cockily, and she ground her teeth to do so, the echo of the last time she’d led him somewhere in both of their heads.

This time, she still found herself with a sore bottom, though this time it was because his hand had slapped her backside as they left the mall and turned towards the back, where trucks dropped off shipments and the dumpsters were kept.

She let out a cry of wordless anger and turned on him, slapping his face as hard as she could. He just laughed. Rachel was trembling in fury, and she could almost feel his handprint on her. She’d hit him _hard_ , and he had the temerity, the nerve, to stand there and laugh at her? She’d kill him, she’d murder him, but just as she focused on the image of the bear, he spoke.

“Like I told you before Rachel, you’re just a girl. Like you would have beaten me if you hadn’t _tricked_ me last time. I bet you’re already thinking of morphing in order to try to subdue me. How pathetic. Can’t fight your battles as Rachel, huh, you need to turn to the bear and the elephant to fight them for you.”

Her entire body was very, very hot with how angry she felt right then. Turning to her morphs? Like they fought for her? SHE fought, she felt the pain, she delivered the blows, and this impudently smiling JERK had the nerve to imply otherwise?

She went for him, trying to scratch out his eyes, hit him, whatever. The bag of shopping was on the ground, forgotten. And he grabbed her wrists and slammed her against the wall so hard it knocked her breath out.

“You think you SCARE me, Rachel? Do you know what it’s been like? What rats are like? I spent months on that godsforsaken rock, and it was kill or be killed, eat or be eaten. I tore living beings apart, I was almost torn apart, and I couldn’t just morph back and get healed whenever I liked. I was scarred, I was ugly, but I WAS A SURVIVOR!” He was shouting, and a savage look was in his eyes.

She sneered and kneed him in the groin, jerking her hands free when his opened reflexively.

“No one cares, David!” She sing-songed, her eyes narrowed and her teeth bared in a grin. Or a snarl. It was hard to tell. She punched him in the face.

He punched her right back.

Fuck. He hadn’t been this strong before, why was he strong now? She could SEE muscle bulging under his shirt. He smirked as she put a hand to her eye.

“I think I got a better deal than your boyfriend did. All the effort I spent in fighting to live? All the shit I went through? It’s all channelled into my human morph. You might be tough for a mall rat, bitch, but I might as well be in the arm-“

Grab the hand, twist the arm, slam her hand down above the elbow, and the arm is broken. David’s howl echoed. “Arm….?” She said questioningly, dropping his hand and laughing nastily at him.

And then, almost faster than her eye could follow he was on her feet, his good arm slamming her into the wall before she could even react. He snarled, and she glared and all of the sudden his lips were crushing into hers.

She made a sound, and hated herself for how… weak, how girly and protesting it was. She felt better when she reached out blindly and grabbed the broken part of his arm and _squeezed._

What she couldn’t explain, when he screamed in agony and tried to jerk away, was why she knotted her hand in the back of his hair and kept his lips on hers, kissing him back hard and biting his lips enough to draw blood.


End file.
